The River
by twillight forever
Summary: A hunting trip goes awry when a blizzard blows in.
1. Chapter 1

The snow was just coming down much too fast; they had badly miscalculated, John Smith thought as he gazed out of the small shelter he shared with his hunting partner. They would be stuck here this night, perhaps the next, he thought. He sighed in dismay, not knowing how his hunting partner would react to the news.

The shelter itself was cozy and warm enough, with a fire crackling gently in the center, radiating the heat to all sides; blankets and animal furs were rolled up neatly in one corner; spare weapons and cooking implements hung on one of the branches that served as a makeshift wall hook in their little shelter. There were enough food rations and water was plentiful, too, as their camp was located a few miles away from stream that led to a bigger river, but as they also plenty of water stored in canteens.

It really wasn't too bad in here, John Smith thought; he could stand a night or two ... but he had his doubts about his partner. He was a seasoned hunter and tracker, a former soldier, so, admittedly, a man who was capable of killing to survive, but also of providing for himself under less than desirable circumstances. But he worried that his companion would be unsuited for even one night roughing it in the forest. He hoped she would take the news well.

Well, as well as she could. They were far from any of her family, and their friends or neighbors, at least two days' walk away from where they were camped now. The storm had come up unexpectedly; they thought they would be home in time.

Clearly not now. The snow flurries had strengthened to blizzard strength, and it was now hard to see anything farther away than a few feet. The winds were bitter, howling. The chill was creeping up in its intensity, having grown colder all day until the snow had begun to fall. Now, breaths were frosty and fingers ached.

Anxious, John peered out of the shelter, holding back the heavy animal hide that served as the door; no sign of his partner yet. Worry began to rise in his stomach and move to his throat. He let the hide door close; he began to pace the little shelter, hoping she would return soon. He had left his pocket-watch back at his cabin in Jamestown, and no sun was visible by which to tell the time. But he knew she had been gone far too long.

Pocahontas had left the security of their shelter, after helping him hang the dressed game on the branches of a nearby tree. She had gone out past the creek, to the deep, ice-strewn river, to remove their fishing traps, ingenious inventions into which hungry fish swam, attracted by bait.

The snow had come up unexpectedly, as it often did in late autumn. There would be no more fishing, she had said, if the rest of the winter was going to be as bad as this storm; she had said she would be right back. They had both thought that the weather would hold so they could get home.

He was only grateful she had remembered, but in the time she'd set out, some time ago, the storm had intensified. Realizing both of their predictions had been wrong, and knowing that the deep river was much farther from their camp than the stream, John's anxiety intensified. Finally, after several more tortuously slow minutes, he put on his coat reluctantly banked the fire; he left the warmth of the shelter.

The iciness of the chill was breathtaking, and the few inches of snow that had been on the ground were beginning to grow rapidly in measure. His boots crunched through the snow, and the snow left a powdery finish on his black wool coat. His hands were shoved into its pockets, chilled despite his gloves. Those were impractical for the task of hunting itself, but convenient in the time one was not hunting; he was grateful to have found them shoved in a coat pocket when they set out on their journey initially.

The mile and a half to the deep river seemed interminable in the weather; he passed the shallower creek and called her name, hoping to find her there; but there, she was not. He pressed on, every so often calling for her.

Nothing.

He knew if he didn't find her soon, he would likely not be able to.

As he squinted through the blinding sheets of snow that were blowing in the wind, he saw one of the fish traps, full of plump, shiny-scaled catch, on the bank of the river, the long rope coiled up neatly.

There should have been two traps.

But he only saw one.

He began to run, but it was more like a blind stumble. "Pocahontas!" he called.

The river was wide, and the water churned powerfully. It wasn't a lazy river or a gentle one. The banks around it were steep, rocky and sharp, and the shallowest point of the river was probably strewn with sharp rocks. A monstrous waterfall downriver fed it, providing much of the churn in its wicked current. Anyone sucked that far in its current would go over the falls.

Although this river had a reputation for wicked rapids and unpredictability,it was the one with the best catch in both the spring and the fall seasons. But it was rough, notorious for overturning canoes and small boats. In fact, her tribe had lost two young men to drowning already.

"Oh, no," he muttered to himself as panic bloomed, "No, no no," he said breathlessly. "Pocahontas!" he called again, as he hurried along the length of the bank where he knew the other trap would be.

It should be ... about here ... He kept hastening, finally running, although he knew that expending all his energy in this snowstorm was less than ideal. Where was she?! his frightened mind churned. He stopped, took a breath, and looked around him, at the endless billowing whiteness that was obscuring the forest in the distance. Did he really expect her to walk out of it at any moment?

He scoffed, told himself to pull himself together, to not panic. He focused his attention once more on the river itself.

The water, always fast flowing, was now dark, freezing cold, rapid even as chunks of ice began to slowly overtake its motion. By the end of the night, it would be solid ice, he reckoned.

Oh, God. The realization hit him just as these normal thoughts ran through his head, a way of talking himself down from panic had only made it escalate.

It would be solid ice.

He had to find her, and he had to find her NOW.

Surely, if she was lost somewhere in the forest, she would know to stay in one place until he went to find her. But she was not in the forest ... she had said specifically she was going to pull in the traps. So she must be here, he reasoned.

He called her name once more.

The silence was enormous, the only force bigger than the howling of the wind and the force of the blizzard.

He continued walking the length of the river where he knew the trap to be, coming to the end of the bank and not finding it. It must have washed into the river.

The traps were large, about two feet across and a foot wide. And when they were full, they were heavy.

Indeed, that was what he next discovered, finding the rope frayed and broken off from the heavy stake that moored it to the riverbank. Cursing under his breath, he tightly clutched the sodden,threadbare rope in his hand as he rose from his position crouching by the water.

He glared angrily at the dark, churning water, desperation and fear his only emotions stronger than anger and frustration.

He reasoned with himself: She was smarter than that, to go into the water after a trap that had come unmoored. He knew the terrain around here, underneath the snow, was rocky and sharp, unforgiving, so he tread carefully, knowing that he needed to replace his worn leather boots as soon as another ship came into Jamestown with supplies.

He had never fished this area.

This was not his first trip hunting out in this area, though, but he tried to think, to quiet his thoughts, which roiled almost as fast as the river.

It was quite simple, really. She must have slipped and fallen, struggling to pull in the trap if its rope had gotten caught on something. Slipped and fallen and fell into the water.

This thought roused him.

Oh, Pocahontas ... he stared into the unforgiving black maw of the water. He pushed back the feelings of helplessness and growing fear, of what he would tell her father ...

He never should have let her go out alone. But she had insisted he stay inside, because earlier he had carried back all their game and dressed it, and she'd insisted he stay and rest, warm up.

What a fool he had been. To let her go out alone and try to pull in these heavy traps ...

He shoved his gloves into a coat pocket, and left the coat, his boots, and most of his clothes on the bank.

The water was so cold, that he cried out in terror and shock. He was a strong swimmer, but the cold was unbearable. Within seconds, he was chilled from head to toe.

"Oh, my God," he gasped in disbelief; the water must be as cold as the North Sea, which was close enough to England, back home, but certainly a place he had never been.

He cursed and then began swimming into the black water, dreading his task, but desperate.

"Pocahontas!" he cried, his voice hoarse with cold. He didn't even know if she knew how to swim, he thought idly, as strong strokes powered his body through the water.

The vantage point was better, being in the water; you could actually see in front of you more than a few feet now that you were a little lower than the eye-level snow flurries.

As his lungs burned and his body prickled with pain from the icy coldness of the water-indeed, a small ice floe just went by-as he almost wanted to give up ...

There.

Floating gently by some rocks, inky black hair...

He reached her, his hands closed on her hair, which floated and bobbed in the water like a black seaweed.


	2. Chapter 2

"Pocahontas!" he gasped, pulling her closer to him, pushing himself closer to her. As his hands grasped her hair, he felt relief, dread and fear at once-relief that he had found her, dread and fear that she was dead.

Indeed, the swirling water threatened to engulf them both; she seemed so fragile, half submerged. The water had all but claimed her; she floated with most of her face in the water. John grasped her by the shoulders, pulled her upright. She lolled back like a limp doll. She was bleeding and bruised. She had not been before. She had gone out to the river whole, unblemished; now she was bleeding at her temple, her face soaked in blood, bruises already evident on her face.

The only sounds were the churn of the water and the howl of the wind.; the only sensation, the pain of the cold temperature. The cold was assaulting John's body like a thousand needles, the discomfort of holding a piece of ice multiplied by one thousand times.

And the water would not give up its prize. Even as he stayed with her in those precious seconds-seconds which he could not afford-the water played cruel games, splashing, lashing, swirling.

"Oh, God," he heard himself gasp, spluttering, swallowing some water so icy that it hurt, lungs and throat aching. But he forced himself to call to her.

"Pocahontas," John gasped, wasting precious time trying to determine whether she was alive instead of hauling her to shore.

A particularly hard current came up just then, tugging her away. "I don't think so," he said through gritted teeth as he pulled her close and wrapped legs and arms around her. "Pocahontas," he said again, taking her face in one of his strong hands. Carefully, he washed the blood from her face with freezing water cupped in his hand. The cut on her forehead was less drastic than originally appeared, but still horrifying.

Her eyes were fluttering between open and closed, a half-consciousness. Her color was drained. Her hair was in her face, wild tangles. He grasped at her mouth, and she made a faint sound, between a groan and a sigh. It was enough.

John cursed with chattering teeth and began the long swim to shore, looping the piece of sodden rope around one of her wrists and pulling her arm behind her back so that she wouldn't fight him in sudden fright or cling to him too strongly and pull him under.

The riverbank seemed so far away. The swim was agonizing. Pocahontas was so heavy in the water, which drove them toward rocks, overwhelmed them with waves, encroached on them with ice, and threatened to separate them, unwilling to give up its prize.

Chilled to the point of pain and disorientation, John struggled, nearly losing his grip on her a few times. Finally, as they neared the riverbank, he stopped long enough to disentangle her from his grasp, though he still held on to the rope tied around her wrist. Pocahontas was still barely conscious, shivering violently, her color terrible. She was struggling to stay afloat and not swallow water. John kept a hand under her chin, around her face, squeezing perhaps a bit too tightly.

"Pocahontas," he said forcefully, "listen. I need you to help me. You have to swim to shore. I'm too tired."

Her eyes widened, full of fear. She heard him, she understood. Her teeth chattered as she tried to speak. She flailed in the water in fright and an exhaustion of her own.

"Listen. Swim, now. Do you hear me?" he pushed her away, out in front of him. "Swim. Now," he urged, pushing her along. Water rushed at them, crashed over them. Spluttering and coughing, they swam, exhausted.

She was weak, and John allowed his thoughts to slide to the fact that she was bleeding, that one of her wrists looked a little distended.

He cursed as they swam the final few hundred feet; how had he barely noticed? Blinded to it by greater fears?

There was nothing welcome about the rocky shoreline. Pocahontas grasped at the rough, sharp rocks with trembling hands, failing to get purchase. John grasped her around the waist. "Climb," he ordered, "Now," he urged, hoisting her up with what little remained of his strength. But he reached dry land before her, hauling her out as gently as he could, but just barely-the river's shoreline had rocks deep in the water that bashed their legs. Thin rivulets of scarlet now ran down their chilled skin.

They lay in each other's arms, sprawled, for just a few seconds. John roused himself, knowing that they would both freeze to death. Heedless to the fact that he was just in his drawers-in the middle of a snowstorm-John tended to Pocahontas, who lay clutching at her head, red blood staining the paleness of everything around them-her skin, his skin, the snow. She muttered something like "fell," or it might have been "there."

John had gathered up all his clothes, and found the handkerchief in the pocket of his coat. He pressed it to the cut on her head, telling her to keep it there, but she was fading again.

He took the knife that he kept in his boot and sliced off her wet deerskin clothing-wet animal hide is difficult to remove any other way-and wrapped her in his coat. He took a few precious seconds to put on the rest of his clothes, and then pressed the handkerchief back to the cut, keeping the pressure steady for a few moments. He was relieved to find that it was just because she was soaking wet, that it appeared worse than it was. Water from her hair was continually washing the blood down the side of her face.

He picked her up, and began the long walk back to shelter.

Nearing numbness in body and in mind, he finally reached their little camp. He had almost no more strength left, but the weight of her, barely stirring in his arms, spurred him on. He set her down on the sleeping mats he hastily prepared in one corner of the shelter, then banked up the fire with aching, stiff hands.

It would only be a matter of time before the fire warmed their little shelter. He stared at it like a hungry animal eyes prey, willing it to grow in strength.

Once the fire was going, he took off the clothing he had put on, and then took his coat off of Pocahontas, who lay curled on her side, trying to say something. John went to the other side of the shelter, which held their packs and provisions. He came back with the bag belonging to her.

"Pocahontas, it's alright," he said, "it's John. 'Tis alright now. You were in the river. But you're safe now." As he talked, he dressed her in dry clothing.

As he did so, he thanked God and the spirits her people worshiped; he had insisted that she pack some heavier winter clothes, clothing heavier than that her tribe traditionally wore. She had taken a liking to some of the women's clothes in the Jamestown settlement, so he had been happy when their discussion of winter clothing had ended with him purchasing a few items for her.

So, on went the knit stockings, the cotton shift and then the woolen overshift, a garment without sleeves but that was made from a warm, light wool. Next, he bundled her into a blanket and settled her more comfortably on the sleeping mats and furs, settling one of the pillows under her head.

He took a moment to dress himself in dry clothing from his own bag, and laid all of the salvagable clothing items out to dry near the fire.

"Now, let's just rest," he whispered, more to himself than anything, sinking down gratefully beside her, pulling her into his arms. They lay shivering under the blankets, arms and legs entwined. She breathed deeply, coughed, then lay still again, a slight rattle in her throat. She clutched at him in her half-sleep, muttering in her language. It was then that he noticed her hands were scraped, from rope burn. The rope on the trap must have snapped suddenly. But one of her wrists was swelling slightly, bruised. He frowned.

He held her until he felt the cold fading from his core, then reluctantly roused himself, draped a blanket over his shoulders-for he was still cold-and tended the fire and to a few other tasks.

Pocahontas was aware that her awareness was not quite right. She registered some things very clearly, sharply-John's voice (deep, soft); his breath (cinnamon); his scent (sandalwood, soap, gunpowder, salt), his hands (rubbing hers to warm them). And how close he was to her, and that they were in bed together. His warmth. That was another thing she registered clearly; snuggling into him and breathing him in.

After what seemed like a while, Pocahontas shifted in his arms. She was wrapped snugly in a soft blanket, with warm, dry clothing on made of unfamiliar but comfortable fabric. She remembered that it had been dark, and cold. Then, someone had been talking to her ... _now, why was the firelight so bright?_

Her fingers and toes had stopped tingling. But she was drowsy, and thirsty, and her head hurt ... all at once. She was also a little confused.

 _How did she get here? Why was she wrapped in a blanket? Why did her head hurt? Why was her knee scraped? Why were her hands scraped? Why was her wrist throbbing and aching?_

She shifted again. "Mmmhmf," she mumbled into his shoulder as she shifted away.

She bunched the blanket in her fingers, let it go: a nervous gesture. She drifted off, then woke up with her mouth open.

"John?" she tried his name on dry lips. He was no longer beside her. She tried to sit up and then winced, putting a hand to her head, to the spot that hurt. It was sticky, and she pulled her hand away with a repulsed cry.

The room spun for a moment, then she saw him clearly, tending to something at the fire. They were back in their camp shelter. A wave of hot dizziness washed over her. Pocahontas closed her eyes; opened them again. "John," she said a little more urgently, coughing.

The man she trusted with her life, trusted the life of her father with, looked up from his task by the fireside, and quickly went to her side. Just as her face crumpled into tears, he took her into his arms. "Tis alright, love," he said as she clung to him, the blanket slipping off her shoulders.

But things were not alright in that moment. She felt dizzy and ill, something felt like it was lodged in her chest and throat, her head ached. And she was starting to remember.

Just as she had started focusing on him at the fire, so memory of what happened had started coming back. What had happened such a short time ago, something so horrifying that it felt long ago.

 _The crunch of snow under her moccasins, the repetitive hauling motion of pulling in the traps. The moment she had realized the second trap was caught on something deep underwater; her frustration as the rope snapped. The burning sensation as the rope had scraped up her hands._

 _Cursing and turning away from the churning river, kneeling in the snow, packing snow on her bleeding hands. Then, as she got up to return to her task, feeling like she was being watched. Even though her hands were bleeding now, she had to finish her task. She told herself it was nothing-she was alone out here, and she would be back at camp soon._

 _But the feeling didn't fade as she walked toward the first trap that she'd already pulled from the water. There was no retrieving the second right now. For all she knew, it would be iced over by nightfall, down below her in the water._

 _Kneeling by the first trap and opening it, reaching for a shiny, fat fish that had stopped flailing. That feeling again-the hair on her neck prickling. Peering into the rushing snow, seeing a shadowy figure._

 _"John?" she called into the wind, which snatched her words away. Going back to her task; reaching for the small knife at her waist, sliding the blade into the fish._

 _Seeing the shadow fall over her. Looking up into it, and barely being able to scream before the man wrenched her up from where she crouched. He grabbed her knife and threw it into the snow away from them._

 _She was so stunned to see him that she couldn't fight, couldn't scream. She was so confused-why was he here? The man, dressed in warm winter clothes embellished with gold trim and with a heavy jeweled brooch holding his cloak-made of expensive, luxurious ermine-closed at his throat, was a menacing presence. He was as strong as ever, towering over her, overpowering her with his strength. Almost instantly, he had pinned her arms behind her back with one hand and clamped the other hand over her mouth._

 _"Surprise," he hissed, grinning like a madman._

 _He shoved her forward, toward the edge of the bank, forcing her to look over the steep drop, her stomach lurching. Rushing, black water; ice floes; rocks everywhere._

 _"Did you really think, princess, that you and your people were rid of me?" the man's deep, oily voice slithered in her ear. "Oh, no. You've not seen the last of me." The man chuckled, sinister, into her ear as he turned her to face him, stroking her face in mock tenderness. Her deep brown eyes went wide with horror._

 _"And your man ... what a fool he is, letting you out on your own in a storm. I was wondering just how you two would work out, after he saved your father and all. Pity, if anything happened to you ... oops!" He shoved her forward so that her feet slipped over the edge of the bank._

 _While she was shrieking in terror, he was laughing maniacally, and pulled her back to solid ground. "There, there. It was only a bit of fun."_

 _"Let me go," she pleaded, shocked that she could find words in any language at a moment like this. Her voice was hoarse with terror, high with shrieking. "Please. I ... I won't tell anyone in Jamestown that you are here. Please, just let me go." Her heart was racing, terror was churning in her stomach. She felt dizzy with panic, closed her eyes and began to sob as she looked out over the precipice that she had just hung over._

 _"Oh, no, princess. That's too easy, to just let you go. My, my," he said, stopping to consider her for a moment, looking at her intently. "It still is a marvel that a ... thing ... like you can speak ... so ... clearly. Smith was right in one respect. You are beyond compare, princess. But the rest, I can't ... I can't quite ..." The man sneered before he next spoke. "I would never ... lie with an animal. Even a pretty one such as yourself."_

 _She spat at him in disgust and derision, but this earned little reaction. He merely cocked an eyebrow, sneered again, and said, "Allow me to explain, princess, why I followed you out here; and explain my presence. The shocked look on your face is priceless. You look like you've seen a ghost._

 _After Smith's little stunt with your father, I managed to escape. Everyone was so busy, bustling about trying to save him. It was quite a lovely distraction. Oh, don't look so surprised, princess. I slipped away. I bribed officials, so the official story is that I'm locked away in a London prison. But obviously, how could I be? No, no ... I slipped away to allies from an earlier colony down the coast. ... I amassed wealth and bided time, and now I'm back to get what's mine."_

 _Indeed, he looked wealthy and well fed, not struggling like her tribe was at the onset of what everyone thought would be a harsh winter. To better prepare for it, John Smith had sold most of his belongings in order to build a snug little cabin for himself and Pocahontas, and the two of them had contributed plenty of labor hours to shoring up a communal food store that the tribe and the settlers were going to share. That's why they were out here, now._

 _Now, she regarded this old enemy with growing horror, confusion. "What are you talking about?"_

 _"Don't tell me so much time has passed that your people don't recall," he said. "The gold, you brute."_

 _"There is no gold. Several expeditions have come and gone since then. You're mad, out of your mind."_

 _Her old enemy only laughed. "That's what you want us to think. But we're not stupid, princess. The Spanish found plenty, and now, our turn here is long past due."_

 _The snowstorm was intensifying; blowing sheets of snow obscured the finer points of the man's face, threatened to snatch away his words. But his voice was deep and powerful and he held her in an iron grip, close enough to kiss her._

 _"There is no gold here! They found gold far away from here, to the west, and across the sea from their colonies down the coast ..." Her eyes widened in alarm and her breath caught. "Those are the allies you speak of who helped you? You would be a traitor to England?"_

 _The man laughed again, charmed at her naivete, her blind loyalty to the country the man she loved came from._

 _"All England ever did for me was hold me down socially. It's a pathetic society of social climbers and sycophantic fools. But when I pledged my loyalty to Spain, things changed. I became rich and powerful. No one on the original expedition to Jamestown knew that I had betrayed them."_

 _"Once they find out ..."_

 _The man tightened his grip, twisted her wrist behind her back, cut off her rising shriek of pain by clamping his other hand over her mouth._

 _She writhed and heaved against him, tears streaming down her face as the pain became unbearable, as he came close to snapping her wrist._

 _"There will be no finding out, princess. No one will know. Because I'm going to kill you. I'm going to kill you, make it look like an accident, and then go find John Smith at your cozy little camp, and convince him to kill himself. You see, he can't live without you. You'll just slip and fall into the river here, and it will destroy him."_

 _Her heart in her throat, Pocahontas couldn't scream. She loved John so much ... she would do whatever she could to protect him._

 _"And with you out of the way ... Pocahontas ...it will be so easy. Everyone respects you, everyone fawns over you. But with you gone, you see, there will be no one left as a barrier to what they all really want-well, all but your lovesick man-which is the utter desolation of your people."_

 _Letting go of her wrist, he eased her down to the ground, releasing his hold on her. She sank to her knees, crying, clutching her arm to her chest. He watched her for a moment, then reached down taking her face tenderly in his hands, like a lover would. She flinched and groaned, trying to pull away, trying to get to the knife he had tossed away, if only she could find it ..._

 _But he held a pistol to her head now, the cold kiss of metal to her brow. She froze._

 _"Good girl. Stop fighting and listen."_

 _"So, how will it happen, exactly? Well, princess, I've watched both Jamestown and the village for the past two years, and now couldn't be a better time. Oh, yes, dear, I have spies. Don't act so surprised._

 _You shouldn't just kneel there with your mouth hanging open. It's rude. ... But, I imagine that at times your man wants you like that ... although again, I can't really see the appeal of certain acts with the likes of you._

 _So anyway, finding you here, when this weather blew in, was just the keenest thing. Ah ah!" he chided, "I didn't say you could move. Stay still, there's a good girl."_

 _"I have spies in Jamestown, loyal to the Spanish crown, who helped manufacture my little escape," he elaborated, "and they've had their eyes on you, your father, and Smith for the past two years. Now is the time. Once you and Smith are eliminated, the head of the chief will fetch us hundreds of galleons, and we'll move in to slaughter both your people and the English. This colony was a failure from the start-starvation and food hoarding; malaria; infighting; not to mention John Smith's little dalliance with you. Now, be a good girl and get up."_

 _Pocahontas slowly got to her feet, not looking her old enemy in the eye, a sign of deference in her culture and, she hoped, a gesture of meekness and fright that would throw him off._

 _It worked. He made a satisfied sound in his throat, a harrumph of approval and smugness, of confirmation that he had her right where he wanted her. He lowered his pistol. At that moment, Pocahontas lunged at him, clawing for his eyes with her fingers. She was as light as a cat against him, and quick, but the blowing snow and the numbing cold blunted her effectiveness. Too quickly, he had her overpowered and lay on top of her._

 _Pinned underneath him, she struggled. His heavy winter clothing weighed her down even more. He grasped her face, much too tightly. "Do you know what really gets to me, princess?" he snarled, "The fact that you haunt every second of my dreaming in the night time, and that I find myself imagining you during the day, too, every time I see a woman with dark hair. You've infected me like some insidious poison, ever since Smith had the nerve and the stupidity to bring you to the fort with your father to broker negotiations that first terrible winter. I can't get you out of my mind. I ought to drag you back to the woods and take you, or even here."_

 _He watched her squirm in horror, scrabble at him with her hands. He pinned her hands. "You filthy savage," he breathed, "No matter how many times I dream of those scenarios, I know I never could. I never could lie with an animal. So I'll just be done with it then."_

 _He rolled off of her, dragged her upright. She staggered, unsteady. "Perfect," he smirked, eyeing the storm, which was growing stronger._

 _He advanced on her, pushing her closer to the edge as he forced her to back away from him. Desperate, Pocahontas rushed to get away darting around and to the side of him, but he was too fast, too strong. "You bastard," she snarled at him._

 _He only laughed._

 _She swung at him, but he was too strong, too fast, and the snow was coming down much too fast for her to react, as it was making it hard to see. With a few swift moves, he had slapped her across the face and then, as she reeled from the blow, hit her hard on the temple with the butt of a pistol._

 _The pain was shattering, and the warm blood that streamed down her face was disorienting and horrifying._

 _"It looks like you'll have a little accident out here after all," the man snarled, and shoved her toward the steep bank._

 _"You'll trip and fall and go into the water, and no one will come look for you. And I'll get what I want."_

 _And then, a mighty shove ... and nothing ... nothing but air, wind ... and the hard slap of water._

Now, as a chill and a sweat came over her at once as she clung to the man who saved her, warm by a fireside, she could not remember if she screamed during the descent. She remembered a cold that was unbearable, harsh, turbulent water. Choking, flailing, then falling into stillness.

John's embrace was so warm, so strong, so true and comforting. But everything that had happened was so ... the room spun, violently this time. The ache in her head intensified. She pulled away, squirming to get out of his arms.

"Pocahontas ..." he tried to pull her close again, but she pushed him away. She coughed, and then more violently, her stomach churning. She scrambled out of the camp bed, to the door, and ran a few hundred feet into the snow on unsteady legs. She stumbled over the hem of her shift, caught herself. Then, in a little copse of trees, alone, she retched and coughed the river and the terror out of her stomach and lungs.

Feeling somewhat better, she walked back to their camp. John met her halfway, anxious. "Get inside, love. You've gone and got your stockings damp with snow."

He sat her down on the camp bed again, and took off her stockings, put them by the fire.

She rested her head in her hands, drawing her knees up, closing her eyes. She listened to him tinkering around their shelter, utensils clinking, water pouring. Something started to smell good and medicinal. After a time, she heard him come over. She kept her eyes tightly closed, tears squeezed out of the edges. He touched her arm. "Pocahontas," he said gently, "drink this. It will settle you."

Reluctantly, she looked up at him, and he pressed the tin cup into her hands, covering her hands with his own warm ones. His thick, wavy blonde hair was tangled and damp, almost dry now. Some color was just starting to come back into his pale cheeks.

"Drink it," he urged gently. "It will settle you."

The drink was hot and herbal.

"What is it?" she asked after a while, her voice hoarse. She must have been screaming, after all.

"Ginger, cinnamon and clove tea. I brought some along because I didn't know what we might need. I wasn't so sure how you would react if we had to stay overnight out here, and it looks like we will be. It's a full-on storm out there."

"Are you always this prepared for your hunting trips?" She looked at him; he was mixing up something in a small dish. Next, he picked up a clean handkerchief, soaked it in whatever was in the dish.

"Yes. From experiences of my own, a few nights in the wilderness can be rough. You don't know what you might encounter, or ingest. In your case it was a frightful amount of icy water. Hold still. I need to tend to this cut on your head."

Pocahontas pulled away, violently, nearly sloshing the tea out of her cup.

"Easy! Pocahontas, let me help you. It's alright."

"No ..."

John stared at her, holding the handkerchief soaked in whiskey and lavender oil.

"What on earth is wrong?" he asked, perplexed. "It will only hurt for a moment or two. Alcohol burns, but ..."

"I'm not afraid of the remedy," she said, and he noticed how hoarse her voice was; noticed the bruises that had bloomed across her cheeks, and on her forehead where the butt of pistol had struck. Her wrist, he noticed, was bruised as though it had been twisted ... but no, no. He had simply tied the rope to her wrist.

The level of fear in her eyes was uncharacteristic for the situation. John was confused, out of his element. Perhaps they were both a little out of their minds, in shock from the cold.

"Pocahontas, I need to understand. I know this was frightening, but you're alright now. I pulled you from the water. You're warm now."

He put the handkerchief into the dish, and then came toward her. He gently stroked her hair, smoothing it away from her face; it fell in damp, knotted tangles. He gently brushed his hands across her shoulders, grasped her hands. Her color was better. She was warm.

"I need to understand," he said again.

"I ...

I didn't fall. I was pushed."


	3. Chapter 3

As the meaning of Pocahontas' words hit John's ears, the only sound in their camp shelter for a few moments was the crackling of the fire, because he was rendered speechless.

" _I was pushed over the riverbank_ ," she repeated, her voice soft and hoarse; she suddenly felt exhaustion hit her afresh.

John Smith seemed to look everywhere but at her for a moment, and then appeared distracted and disbelieving, shaking his head in disbelief, and reaching for one of the blankets, wrapping it securely around her.

"You just keep this on," he said gently, smoothing some of her hair out of her face absently again. "I think you're in shock. You're not thinking straight. You just sit here-" he nestled her back among the pillows, propping them up and fluffing them, making sure she was tucked into the camp bed. "-and let me tend to you, alright?"

Now she _was_ cold, so Pocahontas couldn't object too strongly to being tucked into a warm bed. She no longer shivered and her teeth no longer chattered, but gooseflesh prickled her skin and her damp hair chilled her. But now in addition to the cold, anger and frustration rose within her.

"Hold _still_ ," John Smith murmured as he pressed the handkerchief to the cut on the side of her forehead. She didn't stay still of course, jerking back and crying out, the loudest sound in their cozy shelter as the snow outside blanketed everything, muffling the sounds of the natural world. "Ow!" she cried indignantly, pulling away from him only to hit the softness of the pillows propped behind her back; he had done an ingenious job of trapping her in a warm, comfortable little prison while he tortured her with loving care.

"Easy, love. It's just alcohol and lavender oil. You'll be fine. It will clean the cut of any impurities so it can heal. This is not a deep cut. It's more superficial, so I'd say it will be healed in a few days."

She groaned in discomfort as he kept it up, hated every second of the burning mixture as he pressed the damp handkerchief pretty firmly into the cut; the astringent smell was overpowering.

 _I hate having people tend to me_ , she thought indignantly. _I would rather take care of it myself. I hate when people make a fuss._

John Smith seemed to read her thoughts. "I know you hate it when people fuss over you," he said gently, in a teasing tone.

She sighed and squirmed away as he finally lifted the offending handkerchief from the cut. The skin on her temple around the cut felt tight and tingly from the alcohol, while the cut itself throbbed and smarted from the pressure of his hands.

John seemed satisfied. "There. All better. Now..." he took a clean pocket knife and cut a few thin strips of clean gauze, and reached for her hands. "Let's take a look at your hands."

The older man sighed impatiently as the woman he loved shook her head, clutching her hands under the blanket in a game of keep-away.

"Pocahontas," he said in a warning tone, "You're nineteen years old. Some of the women your age in your people's villages have children of their own. Stop acting like a child."

"I am not acting like a child."

John Smith huffed a sigh, looked at the ceiling of the snug camp shelter, which had been built by settlers a few years ago and improved upon/tinkered with by subsequent waves of settlers and Natives as they shared the hunting ground. It was really quite nice in here, John Smith thought-sturdy walls, good insulation from the cold, good space.

After counting to ten, he looked at her. "Pocahontas, when I was your age-"

"I know, I _know_. When you were my age you'd been shot at, lost at sea,nearly sold into servitude and seduced by some old lady. ... So I should stop whining. But I'm _not_ going to stop whining because you are not _listening to me_!" Her last words rose on a put-out shout, high with anger.

"You think I'm overreacting and that I'm out of my mind, that I'm in shock. But I won't stop whining, because _HE TRIED TO KILL ME_! He said horrible things, and he hit me, and he slammed the butt of his pistol in to my head, and then pushed me. I wasn't alone out there! I'm not going crazy!

 _You are not listening!_

You refuse to hear it because you think that no one else can have crazy things happen to them, because when you were my age you were all adventurous and brave and conquering the world and of course only wild adventures would happen to you, but they can't happen for anyone else because everyone else is so tame compared to you!

That's what you think of me... that I'm some docile daughter safe in her village ... well, I'm not. You and I are both in danger and you are not _listening!_ " she shrieked.

She took a deep breath and let it out slowly, tears pricking her eyes. The exertion was making her head hurt again, and a wave of dizziness washed over her again. She swallowed hard, reached for her cup of still-scalding tea.

John was stunned into silence, once again, a more profound silence than before, and briefly, he let his thoughts slide again to the fact that Pocahontas might be out of her mind. But her eyes were huge with fear, her breath was rapid, her whole demeanor rigid and fearful, scrunched small under the blanket as if to hide from something... or...someone?

For the first time, he let himself consider that her argument was perfectly sane, her mind perfectly rational. And the hair on his neck prickled.

He let her drink her tea for a few minutes; noticed how her hands trembled. When she put the empty cup down, all he said quietly was "I'm sorry."

She looked fragile and young, exhausted, knees drawn up under the covers, head resting on her arms.

"Pocahontas," John said, settling himself beside her and putting an arm around her. "You can tell me anything, you know." He kissed the top of her head. "I'm sorry," he said, whispering now. "Please, tell me. You seem quite frightened. If you say you weren't alone I... I believe you."

She sighed, leaned all her weight against him, let him put his arms around her. He settled himself under the blankets with her, taking her hands to his lips and kissing them softly. She seemed a little more relaxed, and he hoped the lavender oil was having a calming effect. "You can tend to my hands if you like," she murmured, "while I tell you."

"Yes, dear," he whispered, kissing the top of her head again, noticing that the river had washed nearly all trace of scent out of her hair. She now had a heavy overlay of Eau du Dark Water atop her normal scent of soap, chamomile and wild mint.

John waited patiently for her to speak as he led her over to the washbasin, as she washed her hands, and as he dried them and gently wiped the handkerchief soaked in medicinals over the scrapes on her palm. She was quiet as he wrapped them in light layers of gauze, and even as he gently prodded and poked at her swollen wrist, asked her to move her fingers on that hand; she tickled them across his arm. The grim set of his mouth relaxed a bit. "Sprained," he confirmed,"Just as I thought. It doesn't look dislocated, as you have most of your range of motion."

He busied himself with wrapping it in lavender oil-soaked gauze and then told her to stay there; he would be right back.

She stood there, leaning against the small piece of furniture that held the washbasin, trying to gather her thoughts but feeling slightly numbed.

Presently, the door opened and John reappeared, with a whirl of snow sweeping in.

He soaked some cleaned rawhide from one of their fresh kills in water, then beckoned her over. Pocahontas watched in intent fascination as he wrapped the wet strips around the gauze, up to the middle of her hand, tucking in the edges at the space between her palm and thumb. She was still gathering the courage to tell him, struggling to find the words in English.

So she was grateful when he next spoke, his voice deep, gravelly with anger and a man's protectiveness.

"So, someone hurt you?" He tipped her face up to look at him, she was looking at the ground. Shame and fear were in her eyes. "Yes. He was too fast. Too strong."

He merely nodded, accepting the inevitable that she could not have hurt her wrist like this in a simple fall or in the strenuous motion of pulling up one of the traps; nor could she have caused the ghoulish bruises, finger-shaped, that marred said wrist and her face.

"Come back to bed," he said tiredly, holding out his hand. With her good hand, she took it, and got gratefully into the camp bed. John picked up her empty cup, walked to the other side of the shelter, came back with two cups of fresh, cool water.

"Tell me," was all he said as they sipped at the water, watched the fire crackle and dance, and listened to the howling storm outside.

Pocahontas could not miss the fact that he'd also come to bed with his pistol, placed it on the floor next to his side of the bed.

 _His side of the bed_ ... unbidden, thoughts entered her mind and she hoped he would just account the sudden heat in her cheeks to the warmth of the fire.

 _His side of the bed_ ... Just as the unfamiliar tingle raced through her stomach, twisting pleasantly and bathing her in heat, she thought of something else, something that killed the heat with instant, frigid cold. She saw in her mind instead Ratcliffe's predation, remembered feeling the heat of his breath on her face as he panted out his confession. She closed her eyes, shook her head to clear it, and put down her empty cup. She rubbed John's arm for comfort, taking solace in him. Solace in the little things: the soft curly hair on his arms, the freckles that were patchworked all over his arms. She leaned her head down, inhaling his familiar scent-sandalwood, soap, gunpowder, salt-and brushed her lips over his shoulder for just a second. She met his eyes slowly as he looked at her in surprise, then simply just pulled her closer; she nuzzled her face against his chest, feeling the beat of his heart against hers.

"John," she said, measuring a beat or two before she continued, " _Ratcliffe is alive_ , he is here ... he attacked me. He has spies ... he followed us out here ... he plans to ... to kill my father ... to kill everyone ..."

John Smith could not believe what he was hearing, but to be fair, he could not quite believe the events of the past few hours, either, had actually transpired. It all felt so surreal: This was to have been an uneventful hunting trip with the remote possibility of having to stay for one night. Instead, now, the woman he loved had been injured and very nearly drowned in a freezing, violently churning river... and now she was claiming that the person who had injured her and pushed her into said water was their old shared enemy.

He gently eased her off of him, pulled back a little, hitting the wall softly as he pressed his back against the pillows.

"WHAT?" he exclaimed in utter shock. "JOHN RATCLIFFE DID THIS TO YOU?"

The naked earnestness in her eyes, enormous with shocked truth, convinced him alone, bolstered by the injuries he could see on her body. The man had always had a violent streak ...

"Yes. He is here. He is alive."

" _Jesus Christ!_ " John swore, with several more expletives following the name of his Lord.

Slowly, she relayed the whole story.

John listened without interruption, without exclamation, his face fallen in shock and sadness, his mouth set in a grim line.

"So, he thinks that you are dead," John said after a long silence fell after she finished talking, "and he seeks to kill me this night."

"Yes," Pocahontas said, the tremble in her voice replaced by anger and a hardness crystallized out of the fear for those that she loved.

"Jesus," John whispered, and slowly, he got up, taking the pistol with him. Pocahontas watched him stride to the door, tall and lean and well-muscled, aching for a sense of safety as he departed from her side and something-a sob, a scream, a prayer-lodged in her throat; she let out a shaky breath as John opened the door to the camp shelter, walked out. The shadows had shifted as the afternoon had passed and it was now dark, night had fallen early as it does in winter. More time had passed than they had comprehended from the time he rescued her til now.

It was several long, horrible minutes before he returned. In that time, Pocahontas roused herself out of bed, put on her stockings, which were now dry, and pulled out a glass jar from their food storage shelf. Glass jars were a genius invention from the English. This one held ingredients for a meal ready to be cooked with hot water. She next reached into a wooden crate and pulled out a paper-wrapped chunk of meat, something the English called salt pork.

More time passed and in it she had gotten some dinner warming in a pot by the fire in the hearth. She had to do something to distract herself from the danger they both knew they were in; she focused on the sounds of cooking and stirring, the sound of the fire, to push out of her mind imaginary gunshots and cries of alarm.

She added water to the thick stew, savoring the smell of the warming dish-a stew made of corn and mild green peppers, a type of white bean that was bland on its own; the salt pork. She stirred the stew as it warmed, calm and quiet, humming her nephew's favorite lullaby to herself.

More time passed. By the time the door opened, dinner was ready.

John came in, a gust of snow with him. He stamped it off of his spare pair of boots and shook it out of his spare coat, hanging it on the peg by the door. Without a word, he hung his rifle over the door, but kept his pistol at his side.

"Smells good," was all John said as he washed up at the basin.

He came to sit by her, only to find that she was glaring at the door as if it had offended her.

"A flimsy lock will not keep him out."

"Who says it's flimsy? You know Carter-he's the best locksmith the colony could ask for," John said, trying to lighten the mood. He leaned down, kissed Pocahontas' bare shoulder, closing his eyes and in those seconds savoring the softness of her skin, the softness of the wool overshift she wore, lean muscles of her arm under his fingertips, and the delicious smell of their evening meal wafting around them.

This _moment_ : _This_ was the domesticity he wanted, no, _craved_ after spending his twenties as a carefree bachelor. He wanted a wife to delight and protect and cherish, dinner on the table every night, church on Sunday, friends around the table when the mood struck ... a slower life, a calm one.

And now an old enemy threatened that prospect of bliss. It was merely a prospect still, as when he had first met her Pocahontas had been younger. And he had stayed here in Jamestown for two years, helping grow it, becoming successful in his own right and slowly, properly courting her. He had not even asked her father yet for permission to marry her. Their initial relationship had been hasty, in a haze of danger. He wanted to take his time, and now he felt like he was being cheated out of time he had earned, made to rush and race again to save something he loved, thrust into that haze of danger again.

That evil-minded bastard, Ratcliffe.

But Ratcliffe, try as he might, could not steal this moment.

"Shall we have dinner?" John murmured as he kissed behind her ear, threading his fingers through her hair with a feather-light touch, making her shiver. Her answer was a long, slow kiss. Something had stirred within them both, put into motion by the events of the day.

"I was so worried you would not come back," Pocahontas whispered between kisses. His assurance that she need not have worried was a low moan of passion as he kissed her neck. "I will always be here," he whispered as he kissed his way up to her face. They stilled their movements as he gazed in the firelight at the damage done. Anger fueled kisses and touches so possessive that she found herself, after a time, gasping for him to stop.

His anger at his old enemy melted once again into passion for the woman he loved; he relented and his affections became soft, gentle, slow once more. And she responded in kind.

So, they didn't eat dinner until several long, long minutes later, after a proper kissing session. When they finally composed themselves, John's shirt was off. Rather than leave it rumpled on the bed Pocahontas put it on-her woolen overshift had been lovingly unbuttoned and taken off. She had a furious blush in her cheeks that, John noted with satisfaction, didn't fade long after she had washed up for dinner.

So they ate in content silence, with the occasional sly glance at one another, stirring stew with racing pulses and lifting spoons to kiss-swollen lips.

"I gather you did not find him out there," Pocahontas said well into the meal as she served herself more stew, unwilling to say the man's name. She ate her dinner with a single minded eagerness, her hunger fueled by her brush with death. Never had a meal tasted so good: butter, something she had not had before the English introduced her to it, melted into the cornbread and dripped into the stew; the salt pork melted on her tongue in a salty, meaty softness; the stew, a staple of her childhood, tasted new, the flavors of the vegetables vibrant and sunkissed.

"No," John said as he broke off a small piece of warm cornbread and put it in her bowl. "I couldn't really see much of anything on account of the snow. Tomorrow I should have better vantage."

"You know I'm going with you tomorrow," Pocahontas said in a tone that said she was not in the mood to argue, before taking another bite.

"But of course," John said deferentially in a light teasing tone with a grin, causing her to smile for the first time in hours. Smiling made her bruised face hurt.

They savored their meal, refilling cups of water at leisure, secretly licking butter off of fingers when one thought the other party wasn't watching.

After dinner they washed the dishes, then took the metal tub for washing dishes out the door, chucking the dirty water out. Pocahontas then poured fresh water into their washbasin. "The water should warm up by the time we go to bed," she said as she took the broom from the corner and swept the hearth where they had eaten their meal, exclaiming at the cold blast as she swept the dust and dirt out the door.

"It's freezing!" she exclaimed unnecessarily, and as she put the broom back in its corner, rolled her eyes at John, who was laughing.

"Come here," he said through laughter, and embraced her. "You're just the sort of wife I want," he murmured as he kissed the top of her head.

They were distracting themselves, that much was clear. But she wanted the distraction to last as long as it possibly could.

"What sort of wife would that be?" she murmured with a grin, starting to laugh too.

John's mood was darkening as his anxiety tainted it, but he tried to keep it light. "The kind who wears my shirt and fixes my dinner and insists on coming with me, no arguments," he said, kissing her. "And the kind who is brave and always tells me the truth." He stroked her face lovingly, ran his hands through her hair. "You know that I love you, Pocahontas. _I love you._ I know I don't say it enough."

She hugged him tightly. "I know you love me," she said fiercely, "Your love is in everything you do."

They stood there, embrace unbroken, while the blizzard howled its way over the land where they now knew their enemy lurked. With a final squeeze, he let her go.

"I suppose we should go to bed in a few hours. No help is coming tonight." She shrugged, knowing he was right. The plan was that if they did not return to the Jamestown after tomorrow night, her father would send a party out to look for them.

"You are right. We are on our own tonight." The couple jumped as a log in the fire snapped and a spark flew; John watched Pocahontas' long dark eyelashes fan across her cheeks as she stared at the flames licking the blackened log with a devouring rapidness.

"Will we be safe?" she whispered. "Ratcliffe thinks I am dead. He plans to come here for you, to convince you to end your life ..."

"Darling." Pocahontas stopped fretting, looked at the man she loved, her hand at her mouth in a nervous gesture as if she was about to gnaw on a fingernail or two. "There's two of us and one of him. The shock of the surprise will surely put him off his game." This seemed to calm her for just a second before she started pacing, hand at her lips again.

"Do you intend to kill him?" she asked

 _Damn her for asking such intelligent questions all the time._

"Only if he hurts you. I would much prefer to get you home safely. Once you're safe at Reverend Whitaker's, I would rather hunt him down with a band of men and make sure he gets justice back in England. That's a long answer to your question."

"Yes," Pocahontas said, "But we do not know how many men he has with him. He has spies everywhere in Jamestown."

"Darling, please don't get worked up. I want you to rest. You almost died today."

"You're speaking from experience?"

"As one who has had a few brushes with death, some more serious than others, I can safely say that you need to rest, my love. Get ready for bed. I'll be right beside you. I'm not leaving you," he finished softly as tears filled his eyes despite an effort at control. He held out open arms.

She moved into them feeling less like a capable nineteen year old and more like a scared child, and for the first time that day, tears flowed freely, washing the mortal dread out of her mind and soul and body. She had almost died. They were both scared and shocked and reacting to this reality every second without realizing it.

She had nothing left, eventually. Eventually, she was all cried out. She felt so drained, so heavy. She wanted to break into a thousand pieces of glass and blow away in the wind. But she was not made of glass, she knew, as she and John lay snug in their bed.

But glass did not have certain needs. She gently moved out of John's embrace, slid off the bed, got her spare pair of moccasins from her bag. She put on his coat and made to slip out of the door.

Her fingers were on the lock. "Take the pistol," was all he said.

While John waited for her, he surreptitiously wiped away some tears of his own.

Then it was his turn. While he was gone, Pocahontas cleaned up at the washbasin, alert to every creak of the floor, every groan of the branches outside. She glanced at the door constantly, her mouth full of cinnamon paste one moment, her face full of soap suds the next.

Relief flooded over her when she saw him walk in the door, hang up the coat, put the pistol by the bed.

"Told you I would always come back," he said, whistling as he washed his hands and face, cleaned his teeth.

"The comb is on the shelf behind you. Your hair is tangled," was all she said.

Falling asleep later that night, after John read to her from a book he had brought in his bag, was no effort for either of them. As Pocahontas drifted off, her body lurched, feeling as if it was falling into nothing. "Shh," John murmured, putting his arm around her. He knew the lurching feeling very well. It often happened aboard ship and off-ship when one was first back on land. She murmured contentedly and snuggled into his bare chest, the heat from his body warming her through her thin cotton shift.

They both awoke at some point.

"Pocahontas," he whispered after a while, "are you asleep?"

"Was," she murmured, her voice slurry with sleep.

"Marry me," he sighed into her hair as he rolled over and stretched. She did the same, snuggling up to his back, laying her head on his shoulder, a smile on her lips.

"Yes."


	4. Chapter 4

Something else woke John later in the night; first, a steady beating sound. Then, a furtive scratching, a scraping at the door. In dread, he opened his eyes slowly, feeling his throat constrict in fear on his next intake of breath.

The sounds continued; John realized that the steady _thrump_ was horse's hooves. At first, he thought _Good, the horse I loosed just before the storm hit has returned to our camp._ He and Pocahontas had arrived here in a horse-drawn cart, intent on taking the game back in the cart. The cart now sat near the side of the cabin they were in, covered in heavy canvas against the snow. The horse had probably survived the storm in the shelter of the forest, and come back now hungry for the bundle of hay they kept in the wooden crate that rested on the ground beside the cabin.

But whatever this horse was doing, it was pacing, bumping the side of the cabin, skittish. And then the other sounds: scraping, rattling. Like someone was trying to get through the door.

No, not _as though_ someone was...Someone _was_. Ratcliffe. John's heart sank.

The velvet darkness of the several hours they had slept had given way to the twilight just before dawn, bathing the cabin in gray light except for the darkest corners; shadow fell over the side of the bed where the woman he loved slept. Pocahontas' side of the bed was near the cabin wall, and she slumbered on, oblivious to the scratching, rattling and scraping at the door.

Agonizing seconds went by as John tried to decide whether to wake her. She slept a sleep he was not fond of remembering-the sleep of the battered, the frightened. A deep and leaden sleep devoid of dreams, a sleep that struggled to heal the body, the mind and the spirit.

Their camp had grown cold overnight as it was not safe to sleep with a fire going. Hastily John pulled on his shirt and coat, warm socks and boots, slipping in the knife he always carried in one of his boots. The scratching and rattling at the door was becoming more intense by the second, as the determined intruder came closer and closer to breaking the lock.

John swung his legs over the side of the bed, pulled on his trousers, counted the seconds. Ten, nine, eight ... He shook Pocahontas gently. "Wake up!" he whispered, an urgent tone in his voice. A sharp inhale of breath, a murmur and a lazy movement told him that he had interrupted her sleep. "Pocahontas, wake up NOW," he whispered, leaning close.

"What?" she said sleepily, and he pressed his fingers to her lips. "Shh! Be quiet. Wake up. Now." In those few hazy moments with his cold fingers pressed to her lips-or maybe her lips were cold because it was cold in the cabin-awareness flooded back to her mind. "Oh, God," the young Powhatan woman whispered. She moved out of the shadow, to sit up in the bed, moving close to him and putting her hands around his shoulders. She was freezing.

They stared at the door in the gray diffuse light. "Pocahontas," he said, sparing her a glance as he reloaded his pistol, "hide by the wall. Under the bed. Now."

"But John-"

"Now," he said with a renewed urgency as the door juddered and shook, little splinters of wood falling down around the cast iron lock and hinges. Pocahontas' eyes widened in fear as she grabbed her woolen overshift that hung on the metal bedframe; she hastily put it on and then did as John said.

She was safely tucked away just as the door burst in.

From where she huddled in the shadows, she watched as John stood calm and confrontational as Ratcliffe invaded their peaceful hunting camp. The floor was freezing, stealing her breath and her thoughts, sending gooseflesh and shivers from the soles of her feet to the top of her head. She swallowed hard and concentrated on breathing as slowly and quietly as she could, wishing she had dragged a blanket down with her.

"You look as though you've been expecting me," the traitorous governor said, an insincere oily smile on his face.

"Expecting you to be dead, more likely." John's tone was flat, angry, clipped and tight. "Yet here you are in my hunting camp. How did you find me?" he let his tone rise a bit on the question, inquiring.

"You don't seem surprised to see me," the man sneered.

"To the contrary. I am quite surprised to have the door broken down as I sleep." Noncommittal, vague-the words of someone used to sticky situations and tight negotiations. John suddenly bent down, fussed with one of his boots. He then kept the hand slightly behind his back.

Ratcliffe's smug expression faltered as he gazed around the cabin.

"Are you looking for something?" John asked, "How would you like a civilized conversation with a little bit of lamplight? And kindly get that pistol out of my face."

Ratcliffe cocked his head; bemused. He sneered. "Fine." He lowered the pistol, but gripped it tightly, ready to fire. He frowned, glanced around the cabin again.

John seized the moment. "Darling," he called loudly, glancing back by the bed, "Would you get us a light?" John called loudly.

The color drained from Ratcliffe's face and the last vestige of smug satisfaction melted from it as Pocahontas emerged from her hiding place. Silently, she struck a match from the box next to the lamp that sat on a shelf; lit the lamp and picked it up.

"Kindly turn up the wick so the light gets stronger; I want him to see your face," John ordered as Pocahontas approached, not taking his gaze from Ratcliffe until Pocahontas was at his side.

In the lamplight, her bruised and cut face looked ghoulish. As Ratcliffe surveyed the damage he had inflicted, he swallowed visibly and grew paler.

"Thank you, darling," John addressed Pocahontas. Now," he said, addressing Ratcliffe. "Take off your cloak and put it on the floor."

Begrudging, Ratcliffe did so; tossing it with contempt. "Now take off that heavy coat, slowly now. No sudden moves."

"But you get to point a pistol at me and give me orders?" Ratcliffe sneered.

"Ah ah. I didn't allow you to speak," John warned, holding his pistol steady at his old enemy. "Now give that coat here," John said, stepping forward slowly and taking it. "Pocahontas is freezing and that wool looks so warm. Put this on," he directed her, holding it out. She took it gratefully; the instant it was on was a relief.

"Your attempt to kill her obviously failed."

Ratcliffe stood, silent for a long moment.

"You should be dead from cold and exposure, your flesh left to rot," he said, his eyes wide in incredulity.

"Yet I am not," Pocahontas replied. "And I intend to make your plans against us known to the people in Jamestown and in my people's villages."

Ratcliffe shook his head, a warning gleaming in his eyes. "Oh no, princess, I do not think so. You see, I intend to finish the job right here."

"You move one finger and I will kill you," John shouted in warning, stepping closer, pistol at the ready.

"You wanted a civilized discussion, Smith. But I am afraid we cannot have one with ..." Ratcliffe gestured with the pistol he was holding, "that ... thing ... in the room with us. Kindly make her go outside where she belongs. Then you and I can talk business. It will be like old times. You know ... how many of them we can kill in a single day, that sort of thing. Remember, you boasted of a body count once." He grinned wickedly.

The couple stood in shocked silence. The freezing cold floor made Pocahontas' bare feet ache. They looked at each other, at a loss of what to do, until Pocahontas gave John a subtle nod, a look.

John swallowed and then gestured to the door. "You heard him. Go."

Pocahontas took painfully cold steps to the door, brushing close by John as she did so, so close that shoulders touched and their hands intertwined briefly. Her hand was on the door's latch when Ratcliffe spoke.

"But before you go, my dear, you have one last chance to tell me where the gold is. If you lie to me I will shoot you in the back as you go out the door."

"Just try to shoot her and I will kill you before you even turn to fire," John snapped, finally closing the distance between himself and the disgraced governor. Standing by the door, Pocahontas quickly stepped up behind Ratcliffe. She reached an arm around his neck. "Step away from him," she said in a threatening voice.

Ratcliffe paused, finger on the pistol's trigger, as he felt the blade of the knife bite gently into the generous flesh of his neck. "I said step away," Pocahontas said again, pressing the blade just a bit.

Ratcliffe slowly raised his hands. John snatched the pistol from him. As Ratcliffe took steps backward, he suddenly kicked Pocahontas off balance, and grabbed the knife from her as she lost her footing and stumbled. Ratcliffe's coat, several sizes much too large on her, slipped from one of her shoulders. In the flash of the following second, Ratcliffe swiped his hand in a rapid arc and drove the blade into her side.

And in the flash of a second, the shaky plan the couple had hastily devised fell apart.

 **Author's Note: Hello, Readers! I was not happy with the direction this story was going, so I edited Chapter 4 to end on the more suspenseful note I was trying for originally. Stay tuned! ... Chapter 5 is in the works!**


	5. INTERLUDE

**The Main Village**

Portents and signs were Kekata's specialty. And for the past day or so, none of them had been favorable. This consistent negativity troubled the old healer deeply. For months now, he had been getting unfavorable signs-they weren't just in his divination and spell workings, though-the very world around them portended a harsh winter.

It had been a hard year: Try as they might to prevent any discord, there were grumblings about unfair trading practices with the settlers; each side complaining that they'd been ripped off and taken in by people willing to take advantage of them. This simmering unease put a damper on their communal efforts to stockpile food and supplies. Now, merchants counted twice and looked over their shoulders, and now Powhatan nation delegates resented what they felt was patronizing behavior.

During the summer a fever had swept through the villages, but had not killed anyone.

Earlier in the year, three young men from the neighboring Massawomec village had drowned in the fast-moving river that was near one of the hunting camps.

There was a rumor going around Jamestown that some strangers who had moved in were actually Spanish spies. No one could substantiate this, of course; but tempers were short in Jamestown and Henrico lately. And, speaking of the latter: Governor Dale had petitioned all of the villages to send some of their young children to the school at Henrico, but no one had complied yet, even after Pocahontas herself had signed on to the idea.

Yes, it had been a rough year. Kekata had been looking forward to an easy end to it, but now it looked as if the year would not go quietly or gently.

The snowstorm was an especially bad sign; to have one this early in hunting season spelled a dangerous, hungry winter for sure.

During the snowstorm, word had spread from the old healer to the chief, who then passed it to his council, who then passed it to the warriors: take a count of people who were out hunting, and go find them if necessary when the snow ceased. The final count was eight: four groups of two. One of those comprised the chief's favorite daughter and the man she loved.

It wasn't really that the great Powhatan loved one daughter, Pocahontas, more than he loved the rest of his children; it was that Pocahontas was the only child of his beloved first wife. And his admiration and love for Pocahontas had only grown over the years, as she had brought the people back to their base of rational wisdom in dealing with the English. He saw the deep love she and her Englishman, John Smith, had for one another, and it inspired him to be a better father, a better leader-more fair, more patient and more willing to listen.

He had been waiting for John Smith to ask his permission to marry his daughter, but that day had not yet come.

The old chief stood, wrapped in a heavy woolen trade blanket, in snow that nearly reached his knees, frowning, trying to push worry away. And now that day might not come, he thought.

He had been waiting, three days and a night now, for his daughter to come home.

 **The Hunting Cabin**

The scene was red chaos.

John had certainly seen his fair share of blood before, had been covered in his own.

But fate was being especially cruel now as the blood on his hands was not his own. He would have preferred it that way, that Ratcliffe would have stabbed _him_ over and over again, not her-not someone so young and vibrant and strong, not someone whose absence caused actual pain in his chest.

Some of her last words haunted him, over and over in his head: _I am not acting like a child ... I know, I know: when you were my age you'd been seduced by some old lady ..._

 _Old lady_ not quite-he needed to finesse the stories he told her so that she would get critical details right in the retelling. At the time of his dalliance with the daughter of the Turkish sultan, she had been approaching her thirties, like he was now, thank-you-very-much. Did this mean Pocahontas thought of him as old?

The blood all over his hands, and smeared across her body from which it spilled at frightening speed and volumes, was hers.

Hers.

 _Marry me_ , he had whispered just hours before. _Marry me ..._

And now she was dying in his arms and he was remembering their conversations, some of their most absurd points, at that.

* * *

On the edges of this little scene, as Pocahontas lay bleeding with John Smith trying desperately to save her, lurked the forces of darkness, congregating at the bidding of the man who had summoned them-John Ratcliffe, who lay grazed but not seriously wounded, playing dead. The Darkness shielded him from bullets' deadly power, from the blade of John's hunting knife that Pocahontas had raised to his throat, prepared to slit it open.

The Darkness appeared, first, as a wavy black mist that faded to gray as forms gradually appeared.

The Darkness had shielded him, guided him, for this long, and it had not yet let him down. John Ratcliffe knew that pacts with the demonic had their price, had their risks, but he was all too willing to go along. He peered over at the pathetic scene, not making a sound, hardly daring to breathe. He could feel dull pain where the bullets had deflected off of the breastplate he wore under his clothing, but he tried desperately to stay quiet.

The young savage woman's life was draining out at rapid speed; her lips were blue, her skin losing its healthy flush. Small, weak sounds escaped her lips, pleas for help and cries and whimpers. She began to choke, and at this the man who was kneeling beside her, covered in her blood as he tried to save her, could not hold back an anguished cry of grief and impending loss.

Quietly as he could, Ratcliffe eased himself up from the hunting cabin's freezing floor, and gripped the blood-slicked knife. But he needn't worry, no, not at all-the attention of the Englishman he hated was wholly on the savage. He would never see it coming.


	6. Chapter 6

"It's a lucky thing we found them when we did," Ben Williamson said quietly as he stood with the others, "an hour or two more and it wouldn't have done."

"Aye, and yet a boon they were found at all," Lon McMaster whispered to his friend and comrade.

"When d'ya think-ah," Ben said suddenly as there was a heavy knock at the door.

Lon cringed at the noise, his nerves jumpy on lack of sleep. "Damn, that's loud. And ask the surgeon ta' turn off those lamps upstairs, it's too bright," he snapped irritably as the knocking resumed. "A'right, a'right!" he called, "I'm comin' ..."

Lon swung open the door, and stood face to face with Chief Powhatan. "Sir!" the Scotsman said, eyes wide, "Do come in out of the cold ..." Lon felt stupid all of a sudden, making small talk at a time like this. Fortunately, the surgeon's wife, Sarah Clarke, came bustling down the hall just then.

But as Lon sighed in relief to have someone there, his relief vanished. The surgeon's wife gave a startled cry and leaped behind Lon and Ben. "oh, great heavens! Is that-"

"Yes, ma'm," Lon muttered, "that's the girl's father. He won't bite. He's not carrying a weapon. Ask ta' take his cloak or somethin', be hospitable like."

"Um, ah, ... sir," the surgeon's wife said, blushing furiously, eyes wide, "Do come in ..." she stammered, and she reached for his cloak, a lovely thing of tartan plaid he'd gained on a trade last year.

"Are they all this stammering and awkward except for Smith himself?" Chief Powhatan muttered in Algonquin to the two comrades that had accompanied him.

"Perhaps they are afraid of you," hissed Namontack, the older brother of Kocoum, "Perhaps ... smile, or offer your hand in greeting."

Chief Powhatan didn't so much as drape his cloak across Sarah's arm, but tossed it at her so that it whipped her in the face; as she let out a soft _oof_ of surprise the chief then pulled his face into something resembling a smile. The gesture was stiff and unfamiliar; he put out his hand with all the enthusiasm of wood. The general, and unintended, effect was of a skull's horrifying rictus.

As the white people gawped at him, Namontack stepped in to smooth the awkwardness. The warrior was an attractive man in his forties, just going gray at the temples. He held out his hand in a fluid motion and the barest of smiles warmed his face for just a second. "The chief would like to thank you all for what you've done ..."

"Oh, but of course!" Sarah Clarke gushed now, awkwardness gone, all politeness now. She shook Namontack's hand enthusiastically. "Do come in, my husband Dr. Clarke is upstairs with them now."

She led everyone to the sitting room downstairs and hurriedly draped the chief's cloak across a tall wingback chair. "Ben, perhaps, er, something hot to drink for everyone? And I'll just go and get Henry now." she flashed everyone an encouraging smile and hurried up the stairs two at a time. "Henry!" they heard her call as she passed the stair's landing.

Ben was married, and familiar enough with the process of making tea. He offered the men gathered their choice of "something stronger" or tea, and Lon immediately declared that he would have a glass of whiskey. The kettle boiled while Lon gulped down two glasses of rich, amber-colored whiskey and Namontack sniffed some in a glass, curious. He said something to the chief and the other Powhatan man there. Namontack then drank it down, and Lon clapped him on the back. "That'll put the hair on your chest, eh?" Namontack coughed, a hand at his mouth, eyebrow raised quizzically.

"Strong," he remarked as he put down the glass. "Not bad."

"Care for another?" Lon asked, and Namontack said yes. The other Powhatan, an old healer everyone knew as Kekata, asked for one too.

"I'm not sure this is for the old man," Lon told Namontack; Ben was bustling about in the small kitchen preparing tea. "Too strong."

"No," Namontack countered, "let him have some. Our people keep wondering about this drink every time we make trades with yours, but no one has let us try it yet."

Amused, Lon handed Kekata a glass of stuff. Kekata looked at it intently, sniffed it, and after he saw Namontack down his second tumbler, swallowed it too. "Ahgh!" he cried, squinting his eyes shut and pulling a face, but after a moment coming up with a satisfied expression, "perhaps this will help my visions."

He and Namontack traded some funny barb in their language and were laughing when Ben came with a cup of tea for himself and one for the chief.

"Lon, did you just give them whiskey?" He asked his friend incredulously.

"Sure did," Lon replied, "it'll take the edge off." Ben frowned at him, though. Presently there were heavy footsteps on the stairs, slow and steady. There were murmurs as Sarah and Henry spoke quietly to one another. There was a faltering step on the stairs, too. A third voice. As rich and sonorous as it ever was, but weary.

"Watch the landing," Sarah was saying. "Hold on to my arm."

"...Don't need your help," the deep voice groused.

"Quite to the contrary. You've been in bed for a day and are shaky on your feet." Sarah's voice had a sharp, aristocratic snap to it, and her husband's matched it.

"You'd best listen to my wife," Dr. Clarke said authoritatively, in an over-educated accent that just begged for a smart-ass retort from the patient.

The man's grumbling stopped and he let himself be helped.

The descent was tiring, and as the last few stairs were crossed, John Smith leaned heavily on Sarah. He looked horrible-pale, disheveled and unwashed, in borrowed clothes that were rumpled with sleep. His long blonde hair was tangled and greasy and there was a few day's beard on his cheeks.

"Thank you, Sarah," he managed to say as Sarah eased him into an empty chair in the sitting room. He winced at the movement as much as he did at the bright lights and the glow of the fireplace; Sarah turned down the wick on the lamp nearest him. "Thank you," he whispered, eyes closed, as he leaned his head back on the chair.

Sarah put a reassuring hand on his shoulder. "There, now," she soothed, "let me just fetch you some tea."

The silence in the room was heavy, laden, about to crack open.

Everyone watched the firelight dance across John's pale face and after a moment or two of soaking up it's warmth, he opened his eyes, looked at his friends.

His gaze was tired, weary and beaten down. He looked like a man defeated as he gazed at everyone in turn.

But he only spoke to one.

"Chief Powhatan I ..." He leaned his head on the wingback chair's sturdy, high back, grasped at the bandage around his upper arm. "I am so very sorry, I failed to protect your daughter."

There was a long silence in which Sarah brought John a cup of tea and smoothed some of his tangled hair out of his face. She patted his hand and disappeared back up the stairs.

"Failed ..." John muttered as he struggled with the teacup; it would have been a comedic scene but for the situation's seriousness: Ben put equally large manly hands around the teacup and stilled John's trembling hands. "There you are, mate," he muttered to his friend encouragingly; John managed to drink the strong black tea without sloshing any of it out of the delicate china cup. He drained it dry and set it on the saucer with a violent clatter. Ben wisely took it out of his way.

"John," Ben said carefully as he pushed the dainty tea stuff to one side of the rich mahogany end table, "You did well. In the end you ..." Ben hesitated as he crouched down by the wingback chair, peered into his friend's eyes, eyes that were foggy with grief and fear and the fresh memory of terror.

"In the end," John said quietly, "what? In the end I murdered a man. For my own defense, for hers ... It was too late though. She was so cold, after I shot him. I remember holding her hands, and ..."

Everyone watched as John Smith put his face into his trembling hands, ran them down his skin, scraping the days old stubble with a dry sound, groaning as he pushed them through his greasy hair. His eyes closed tight, in anguish. "It was too late."

Glances were exchanged around the room as the little group of people drew closer to the grieving man. Lon's hand found John's shoulder, just above the bandage wrapped around his muscular arm.

"John," Ben said carefully, a hand on his friend's knee, a little shake to urge him to open his eyes. slowly , John did so, but with all the reluctance of a scared child loathe to open his eyes after a nightmare, as a loving parent calls to them, to tell them there's nothing under the bed.

When John was looking at them-rather, when his eyes were no longer darting frantically around the sitting room and his gaze was _through_ his friends and not _at_ them-Ben spoke.

"John, you killed Ratcliffe, yes- you shot him in the head. He's dead. So work with that knowledge, you did kill a man. But before you shot him he must have stabbed you in the shoulder, after he come up behind ye. But my friend, it weren't in vain-she's alive."

A thousand twitches of muscle worked in John's face then. "You're lying," he finally whispered, cowering away from his friends like that scared child in bed after a nightmare, only he didn't have a counterpane to hide under. His hands covered his face again. "You're lying!" He said more loudly. "She was so cold ... there was so much blood. Her lips were blue. She's dead."

"John," they all urged him at once. Namontack pulled John's hands away from his face, and his hair tumbled around him in a tangled mess. "John," Ben and Lon said sharply at the same time. Then Ben spoke.

"Pocahontas is alive, John. Her old man had sent out search parties after the storm as almost a full day later, none had come back not to their village nor to Jamestown. We knew you were both expected back and feared some kind of accident. I'll tell you what old boy, you're lucky I was called to go along, with my time as an apprentice to a surgeon. What we still don't know is how the hell and why Ratcliffe was there. And ..." Ben hesitated.

There was so much the colonists didn't know and needed to know. None of the other hunters out in those days were harmed in this way. It looked like a personal attack on these two, that's for sure. But John was still not himself. And Pocahontas ... It wasn't the time to ask.

"Pocahontas is alive, John. I was able to take enough care of her that we got her back to Dr. Clarke's. That's all that's important."

John had calmed and was listening now. He stared at Ben, and reached out absently for his friend's arm.

"You ..." he said quietly.

Ben hushed him and continued. "Most of the wounds were superficial. Those bleed a lot. She's got a gash down her arm. I guess she was trying to defend herself. She's got two deep stab wounds, though and a few shallower. And one nice slash across the belly, like Ratcliffe was hesitating and didn't want to drive the knife in."

John remembered now. Events were a blur, but he had some memory of it.

John had slipped Pocahontas the knife he always kept in his boot, when they'd brushed hands as she had walked past him after Ratcliffe ordered her to leave the cabin so that he and John could have a "civilized discussion" without an "animal" present.

 _The very thought of him calling her that set his teeth on edge even now in his opium-addled state._

 _She'd sprang on him like a mountain cat, knife at his throat; he'd put down the pistol. But then Ratcliffe had knocked Pocahontas off balance, she'd tripped on his enormous fur coat she'd put on. Poor thing had been shivering so violently before, her teeth were chattering and her lips were blue._

 _As soon as she'd gone wobbly, Ratcliffe had slashed the knife across her belly, opening a shallow scarlet line that had bloomed red immediately. As she'd clasped her hands to the seeping wound, he'd arced the knife in a dangerous swoop, and she'd thrown out her arm to block him, shrieking in terror. Another long, red line. Then he'd pushed her to the floor and stabbed, and stabbed ... and then John had tackled him, shot him several times but the bullets seemed to bounce away. But Ratcliffe had been down. So John had rushed to her side and tried to stop the bleeding, tried to take the pain and fear from her. But she had writhed in agony, screamed and screamed. And then she had reached to him with her bleeding arm, to tell him, "behind you!" And then he had grabbed the gun, and exploded in rage on his enemy, shoving him violently away._

That must have been how he'd gotten this wound in his shoulder ... now that he thought about it, the stitches pulled and his wound itched. He picked at the bandage as the room started to grow too warm; Kekata was there, gently moving his hand from the gauze.

He didn't remember shooting Ratcliffe, though. He closed his eyes as the memory floated up and grew stronger. _The two of them wrestling around, punching and kicking and shouting, and then John's hand enclosing around the cool metal pistol, and bringing it up just as Ratcliffe had him overpowered, and firing ..._

"Oh, my God," John muttered now, safe in the wingback chair, warm in front of the fire. "Oh, God." He stood up abruptly, rattling the tea items beside him on the table.

 _I'm a murderer. I killed John Ratcliffe, who I've known for years and years in all our travels together. I'm a murderer, again. The last time I killed people, I was with him. So long ago, in Turkey. I had vowed never to kill again ... I had made that vow silently to myself, secretly, as I kissed Pocahontas for the first time that night under the willow tree._

 _But I've failed._

 _I'm a murderer._

 _I'm a murderer with blood on his hands and they're saying she's alive ... But if she dies, will I have killed her? My negligence that night to send her out on her own ... If she dies now ... It can't be true. Ben is lying._

"You can ask the doctor to see her now," Ben was offering, "that's why her father's come." But Ben's words were fading and the room was growing much, much too warm. Namontack's warm brown eyes ... he had four now ... and Kekata split into two people ... Powhatan's face loomed huge now, and his mouth was a great swallowing thing like a beast's. It was so warm in here ... the room tilted and slid and everything was dark.

"Let's not tell him he fainted away," Lon said as they stretched him out on the doctor's plush settee.

Ben snorted derisively. "Much good that will do, as he's about to come around. Just be quiet and calm as he starts to come around. And don't lean too close. Don't slap his face or nothing. It's not like in those novels. You'll only scare him."

"You're speaking from experience?" Lon said lightly, "what, your wife does up her corset laces too tight of a mornin' and faints from time to time?"

"Don't talk about my wife that way," Ben snapped at his friend as he loosened the shirt John was wearing and draped a blanket over his legs, "and no, my wife does her corset up only just enough, thank you."

 _Wonder if that Pocahontas will ever wear one,_ Lon thought, as he tried to picture the constricting item of clothing ever making it into her wardrobe. Just as quickly as that thought had come to his mind unbidden, Lon pushed it away, shaking his head as if to clear it. _What a thought at such a time,_ he thought, as his friend lay on the settee. _Everyone knows he wants to marry her. He just hasn't done the asking yet. If they could keep her alive he might get his chance ..._

Slowly, John came around from the faint. "What happened?" came John's voice then, tired and hoarse. "Everything just ... Oh, God," he groaned, "I fainted. Didn't I." He stared at his friends. "I swear, if you tell anyone-"

They all swore not to let this unmanly episode be broadcast to the colony.

A while later, they all helped John up the stairs except for Kekata; he stayed downstairs in a comfortable chair, warming his arthritic old bones and said he'd only come up if they needed him. (Ben moved the whiskey out of the old healer's reach).

"Now, John," Ben was saying as they approached the closed door to the room where Pocahontas lay, "she's been given plenty opium and it's quite likely she will not have any memory of what happened."

John had been revived with tea and bread and a light broth, and he was feeling better, his thoughts were clearer. "You gave Pocahontas _opium?"_ he asked in horror. "It's addictive. What if-"

"John Smith," Ben Williamson said sharply, drawing himself up, "how long have I known you? How much _crazy_ have we endured together? And you dare question my decisions while I'm the one with surgeon's apprentice training? Well what do you think Dr. Clarke said, huh? He said the only way to properly treat her was to dull the pain completely so she'd lie still. She would have _died_ , John, if we hadn't been able to stitch her up proper and that required really knocking her out. I know it's addictive just as much as you. I'm sorry about the effects it might have on her, mate, but I'm not sorry that I saved her life."

John was quiet now, resigned. He leaned heavily on his friend, exhausted. "Fine." He said without protest. "I just want to see her."

With that, and a _harrumph_ of being right, Ben knocked on the door. Sarah Clarke opened it. "Shh," she whispered, "She's waking. Let's not frighten her. You come along now," she hissed, and pulled them all inside, shutting the door quietly.

The room was pleasantly warm, with a low fire in the grate crackling away, and the smell of freshly brewed tea masking the odors of a surgeon's daily trade. The sharp smells did linger under the sweetness of the tea, though-the sour smell of opium; the musty smell of bedsheets dampened by sweat.

John faltered, but Ben only pushed him further into the room, closer to the large bed, the curtains of its canopy pinned back, the niceness of the room spoiled by dirty linens in a basket in the far corner, the doctor's bag open on a chair. Mercifully, all the implements were put away, so there were no sharp scalpels sitting incongruously next to the tea things.

"You'll have to excuse the mess," Sarah murmured as she hurriedly shoved the basket of dirty linens through the laundry chute, tipping its contents down for the maids to launder, "but I only just changed the bandages a bit ago."

Namontack had taken one look at the scene and decided that was enough for him, he retreated back down the stairs; they heard the loose stair creak under his steps. Lon had stayed downstairs with Kekata.

Dr. Clarke leaned over the patient, fingers gentle at her neck, brushing her tangled dark hair away from her face.

"Ah," he whispered, motioning John over, "she's doing alright," he whispered as Ben managed to get John into an empty wingback chair by the bed. "She's waking, slowly, but she's waking," Dr. Clarke said by way of encouragement, the ghost of a smile crossing his lips.

"She'll be glad to have you here," he told John. "She has a fever but that's normal as the body recovers from ... something like this." Dr. Clarke had held his tongue, not saying _violent stabbing attack._

John said nothing, only reached for her hand, but he hesitated and his trembling hand only brushed hers where it rested on the richly embroidered counterpane.

"I've told him most all but I'm sure it will bear repeating, Dr. Clarke," Ben told the doctor as he put a hand on John's shoulder. "I'll leave you all now. I'll be downstairs with the rest of us."

Chief Powhatan then retreated downstairs too, saying he would come back when his daughter was awake.

That left John and Dr. Clarke alone in the room, door closed as Sarah went downstairs to entertain the guests and make a fresh pot of tea.

The clock ticked on the wall as the two men watched Pocahontas sleep.

Dr. Clarke pulled up the other chair then, and John looked at him, clear eyed and listening for the first time, really, it seemed since he'd woken up to find himself shirtless and stripped down to his drawers in a strange bed and with a fresh stab wound in his arm.

"Dr. Clarke, I can't thank you enough."

"Don't mention it, John. How long have I known you?" the doctor said with a grin, and John allowed himself a smile and a bit of a chuckle then-he had been to the heights of adventure and the depths of hell with these men, and here they were running a colony and trying not to get themselves killed in the process. Par for the course.

Pocahontas stirred, shifted in the bed, the hand on the counterpane retreating underneath it as she curled her body to the side. She was unwashed, her hair a tangled, greasy mess; her face bruised and with a sheen of sweat. In the heat of fever she pushed the covers down, and John hastily covered her up again, as she was only in a very thin, very short cotton shift. It's buttons were undone for Sarah Clarke's easy access at bandage-changing and wound-washing, so her long hair was tangled and damp against bare breasts.

Pocahontas opened her eyes then, and pushed at these hands that were covering her body with hot, oppressive sheets. Her face was flushed, there were old tear-stains across her cheeks and her lips were dry. _Had Ratcliffe's fist cut her lip_? John seemed to remember then that it had.

"No," she said then, her voice hoarse, "too hot ..." she whimpered and kicked out at John as he tried to keep the sheets on her. Dr. Clarke pulled the counterpane down, though, folding it over her feet.

"If a patient is restless, that's a good sign they'll pull through," was all he said in his clipped over-educated Oxford accent.

She was protesting again. "Pocahontas, no," John was insisting, "you have to have the sheet on-" But then she'd batted his hands away with all of her strength, and it wasn't so much of sitting up as it was an awkward rolling to the side, and trying to get up.

Pain shot through her belly, tight and grasping, stabbing and pinching. Breathing was so painful. Her head ached like a drum. Her mouth was so dry, she was so thirsty. _Why was the room spinning? Why was the room so warm? Why did she feel like she was burning up from the inside? And why, oh, God, WHY were there such stabbing cruel pains in her side? And what was wrong with her arm? Why was it bandaged? Why did it hurt so?_

 _And why ..._

 _Why was she ..._

 _She pushed her tangled, sweaty hair off of her neck, catching the damp whiff of her own scent. She stared down then, at her own body, knowing that the beauty of her smooth skin and the plump sweetness of her breasts and the curves of her thighs ... contrasted deeply and very, very wrongly with the gauze that wrapped across the tautness of her belly._

 _Under the gauze was where all the pain was coming from. She knew then, the source of the pain was that she had been hurt in some way._

 _And there were two men here, watching her stagger and gasp and grip the side of the bed, watching her tangle her hands in her hair and push it away, to reveal a barely-there cotton shift that was gaping open, exposing said breasts. They stared at her as she absorbed her situation and her pain. She knew one of them. Knew him very, very well in fact._

The fever was raging and heat was rising within her, but she was shivering even as her body was so hot.

 _I know the one with the blonde hair and the blue eyes. And I have met the other one, once or twice._

The pain was absolutely relentless, vicious. Making it hard to breathe.

She reached out her hands, beseeching, no longer caring about her nakedness beneath the shift. The pain was horrible, and it was making her body contort of it's own volition; she was no longer in control. She writhed and wailed on the bed, holding out her arms to the man she knew. The pain was so sharp it drew sobs from her as she screamed and reached for him, dangerously close to falling out of the bed, or so it felt. The shift slipped completely off her shoulders then and fell in a damp drape behind her. She reached out her arms, and called to him.

She knew his name, and it came to her lips just as the haziest of memories started to come back. She still didn't know why she was here this way ... but it didn't matter right now.

"John," She sobbed, "John ..." And his arms were there, sure and strong, wrapping her up as she sagged against him. His body was cold and warm at the same time, his shirtfront deliciously cool on her naked, heated skin.

Dr. Clarke calmly and without saying a word draped a shawl over Pocahontas' nakedness, and then plucked the shift from the bed and chucked it down the laundry chute.


End file.
